1 December 2000 . . .

I’m glad that I bounced into this tread. Stunning work Melvyn. You must have needed more skill for this demanding job than I’ll ever get in my entire life. You should be very proud to have completed this marvellous job. 😎

And while I get all dreamy when I look at this nice plane the only question that comes into my mind is: What is your next project? 😮

Well Done!

J.V.

I’d love to see the pic and I know Eric Rearwin would too.
They made 124 Cloudsters and about thirty-odd survive. Of those about four are flying and others are being rebuilt. I am in contact with most of those people!

Melv

Give me a few days and I’ll get it scanned. It isn;t the best of photos, obviously from a private collection though it’s in a book, but I’m sure you’ll find it of interest.

Hi Melvyn

So you mean the keychain isn’t from the Spit Then?

Well I never ripped off by a Pommie again..

By the way I have been doing a similar thing for years – cutting up tin cans and selling them as a PART OF Douglas Bader.

Regards
John P

Thanks for that history Melv, very interesting. Strangely all this tim I had for some reason assumed it was a British aircraft. I think because most of the aeroclub aircraft impressed into the RNZAF were British types. I guess the photo with an RAF style roundel and finflash also clouded my mind. No matter.

I can scan the photo if you’re interested.

Are there many others flying today? Or even many extant? I’ll bet yours would be very welcome at Oshkosh.

I’d love to see the pic and I know Eric Rearwin would too.
They made 124 Cloudsters and about thirty-odd survive. Of those about four are flying and others are being rebuilt. I am in contact with most of those people!

Melv

Thanks for that history Melv, very interesting. Strangely all this tim I had for some reason assumed it was a British aircraft. I think because most of the aeroclub aircraft impressed into the RNZAF were British types. I guess the photo with an RAF style roundel and finflash also clouded my mind. No matter.

I can scan the photo if you’re interested.

Are there many others flying today? Or even many extant? I’ll bet yours would be very welcome at Oshkosh.

I think that’s slightly more extreme than my last plan.

Liberal!

Looks like I’ve conributed to Melv’s Rearwin, although I’ve had my copy for about 10 years. Is that too long ago?

No, I was getting meagre payments from Blandford Press then. Since then I have repubished it, lots new pictures WAY better, twice the size of the old book. Send me a PM if you are interested.

It looks wonderful Melvyn, congratulations. The spats give it so nuch character.

For the benefit of those who sadly know very little about Rearwins, can you give a little biog please? When and where was it built originally? Has it an interesting history? Do you have a ‘before’ photo from four years ago to compare with?

OK, here is a brief one. Rearwin Aircraft was set up in the late twenties after Ken and Royce Rearwin pestered their dad about aviation after the Lindbergh flight. They produced a biplane that was used by Louise Thaden in the Powder Puff Derby. The name :”Ken Royce” was given to it after Mrs Rearwin pointed out that using the sons names sounded a bit like “Rolls Royce”. Next they produced the Sportster, a two-seat tandem tourer with a 90hp Le Blonde from about 1935 and three of those are in NZ. They are possibly the ones used as communications aircraft although they might have used Cloudsters.

Next up was the Speedster. A two-seat tandem aeroplane with a Menasco but that would not come out of a spin by itself, part of the cerification procedure, and so had to be radically redesigned, losing most of its speed.

The chap that did the redesign was Bob Rummell who went on to write the book “Howard Hughes and TWA” (or something similar, I have not looked that up). Ken, then in his early twenties, suggested to his dad that they do a side-by-side two seater and his dad was against it as there would be added drag but Ken pointed out that people did not want to sit in tandem and all the other aircraft coming out at that time (early 1939) were side by side. Bob Rummell then designed the Cloudster using the redesigned wing of the Speedster and a new fuselage.

The first two were made with a 90hp Ken Royce. Rearwin had bought the Le Blonde factory (for 10c on the dollar) and renamed the engines Ken Royce as by now the company had become Rearwin Aircraft and Engines.

The third Cloudster (serial 803) was converted on the line to become the first 120hp Cloudster. This was then flown from Kansas to California to become the west coast company demonstrator. It was flown by Ken and his then wife.

The Cloudster was redesigned in 1940 to have a third seat behind the others pointed across the fuselage. Most surviving Cloudsters are this model. A tandem seat instrument trainer based on the Cloudster was produced for Pan Am and one of those lived in England for a while in the 1980s.

The final production aircraft was the Skyranger. This is a scaled down Cloudster with a 75hp Continental engine. Some were built pre-Pearl Harbor and others after the war. The company was eventually bought by Commonwealth and folded a short time afterwards.

Cloudster no 3 lived in California for some time and was actually flying on the day when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and on the very day John Lennon was born! I tell people it is a genuine Battle of Britain aeroplane having flown throught the battle. It was guarding the western approaches – from the other side of the US!

In 1957 it was rebuilt (badly) and again in 1968 and 1986. The quality of these rebuilds was pretty poor.

It came to the UK to supply an engine for the Avro 504 replica that was made by AJD and is now in NZ. I bought it “Complete and airworthy – just needs a new engine” and I have no argument with Tony Ditheridge over this as the paperwork supported this and he had no way of knowing how bad it was. I hd to recover the aeroplane and when we took the old fabric off (dec 2000!) we found how bad it was underneath.

So, four years and a lot of money later she is again airworthy. The engine has 160 hours since a major and was rebuilt by Vintec who are excellent.

There is not a wing rib on the aeroplane that has not been repaired in at least three places and it would have been easier to re-manufacture the wings. During the rebuild I found one wing was from No. 6 and so it is possible that it was changed before she flew or that she groundlooped before leaving the factory. I don’t know the answer to that although most likely is that one wing failed inspection and so they took one from the next available airframe and since the firewall on mine was also from no. 6 then I think that is most likely.

Did it have any wartime service by any chance? The reason I ask is because the RNZAF used four Rearwin variants in No. 42 (Communications) Squadron, which was a squadron of various impressed aircraft. My source doesn’t reveal what variant types were used but the photo of one of them looks very much like your lovely Cloudster but with camo and roundels.

Some were used by the Civil Air Guard to look for subs off the coast of America but I didn’t know about camo and roundels DAMN I could have got into Leg Ends!

1. Me and Ken Rearwin in 1996. That magazine has my aeroplane on the cover. (Illustrating and article on Howard DGAs!)
2. Back at Thruxton after collecting it. There followed several years of storage.
3.Various repairs to aileron bay ribs
4. Fabric Stripped, 1 Dec 2000
5. Fuselage after
6. General condition of the insides
7. The Jury strut.
8. These pulley were seized solid and the aeroplane had been flying like that.
9. The old leading edge, fitted in 1957 with steel nails though ali. Lots of corrosion
10. The first page of the logbook. The engine type has been changed from 5F (90hp) to 7F (120hp) in the same handwriting.

I too was burgled a few years back…. The person who did it was later dangled out of the window of his flat and dropped, wish I could say it had something to do with me but it didn’t. However I didn’t loose any sleep over it and I still didn’t get my stuff back as the low life had already sold most of it on to feed his habit!!!!!

Yeah yeah, very funny.

That is the book that has paid for most of it!

Looks like I’ve conributed to Melv’s Rearwin, although I’ve had my copy for about 10 years. Is that too long ago?

I think that’s slightly more extreme than my last plan.
We were burgled a couple of years back and I wanted to inroduce their faces to every square inch of our pebble-dash, since they liked our house so much.

Brilliant looking Rearwin Melvyn! An achievement to be very proud of!

Right, and now for the part for which I’ll get some abuse…….. (shame I haven’t got Photoshop at work 😀 )

Yeah yeah, very funny.

That is the book that has paid for most of it!

You will be dealt with at a later date. The pirahanas are always hungry . .

a violent man, in fact so laid back I’m almost horizontal, but there are times I’m prepared to make an exception…

I was on the phone to Phil Harding, of Time Team, last night as it was he who discovered it when I was about to give him a lift home. I told him I wanted to see them stripped of skin in a bath full of pirahna fish and then dipped into a vat of battery acid and he said “I see you are as liberal as ever”

Melvyn

And another thing…………………now you have time on your hands….

I have arranged for you and I to buy the Vulcan – they will be delivering it sooon – I gave them a fiver and paid your bail application out – she was NOT 16 – I have decided that you and I can make a quid out of this bloody thing by chopping it up into 25,000 bits and selling them at 10quid each as a “distinctive piece of History” – we will tell the punters it’s a bit of the “Last Concorde to fly”. The pitch is that we will donate all proceeds to the Concorde to fly (A company I set up this morning) and go 50/50

What do ya think brill or wot!!!!

Regards
John P

Hate to tell you this but I have been buying 747s from Mojave and cutting them into 3/8in square pieces and selling them as original parts of Douglas Bader’s Spitfire, the one that was found in the river Mersey . . .

If you are passing Popham . . .

Wish I was, especially as I’ve never seen the beast but it’s a hell of a long way from here. Hope it goes well.

Re the car problems, as I’ve said before I’m not a violent man, in fact so laid back I’m almost horizontal, but there are times I’m prepared to make an exception…

Hi Melve

I am really moved – a real tribute to you – you know how I feel.

Thanks mate, it is much appreciated.

All done on coffee and treacle flapjacks as you well know.

As an aside I have been everywhere in Aus this week but I cant find a Rewind anywhere – particularly the Clobbermiester variety

Are there any here.

According to Eric Rearwin’s site (www.rearwin.com) there is a Sportster in OZ and three in NZ

I know you will still be rude to me after my sucky words and I wear it as a badge of honor – John P

You know I would tell you to depart in a sexually active manner!

What a beautiful looking aircraft Melvyn, look forward to seeing it out and about.
Sorry to hear about your car situation though, hope you can resolve something there.

Great job, Melv.

When it flies for the first time you’ll think it was nearly all worth it.

Bearing in mind that we had two cars broken into over two days and mine is effectively written off, shoving the spats on and dragging her out for a piccy yesterdate was exactly the tonic I needed. I am going down later this morning to see if I can run it just for the hell of it.

If you are passing Popham . . .

Brilliant looking Rearwin Melvyn! An achievement to be very proud of!

Right, and now for the part for which I’ll get some abuse…….. (shame I haven’t got Photoshop at work 😀 )

Looks lovely, does it have the Ken Royce engine on it?

No, this one has the 145 Warner. It was first converted in 1957 with a 110 Warner and then had the 145 in 1968.